Scenes from the Age of Revolutions — Franz Braucht
Behold then, what stirs upon the streets of Eustate, chief administrative heart of the Republic, upon the Day of the Sixth Vulpioz! Alarm-bells, iron-throated, clamor from every district-hall. From rooftops rise black-silver-white Tricolours, nailed fast to chimney-pipes, beneath which glimmer barrels of musketry protruding like so many iron reeds. Patriots perch aloft, as on battlements of a vast communal fortress; up the stairways press womenfolk, bringing to husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, earthen bowls of lentils and carrot, simmered in great kettles that smoke and bubble on the very cobbled thoroughfares. Stone-towers and timber-towers, reared at squares and crossings of the larger streets, swarm with uniformed soldiers, muskets glinting, little cannon pointing skyward in grim expectancy. For, since the Liberation of Alvald has drawn away near the whole aerial Navy of the Republic, all the South-Western Continent, yes even the region of this same Capital, is left bare to the mercies of those execrable Hounds of the Tyrannical Coalition. Over us they hover,—scouts, spies, desolators; not content with prying out our stations of war, they hurl from the clouds their blasting grenades, tearing, firing, crushing our mills, our workshops, our barns and homesteads; slaying cattle, firing harvests, reducing fruitful fields into blackened stubble, and, if aught be worse, sometimes striking the powder-magazines themselves, whence follow Thunder-explosions and a famine more dread than famine: deprivation of our holiest republican sustenance, Gunpowder. Telegraph-stations too are singled out; so is severed the speaking-wire of the Nation, and City to City becomes as dumb to its Brother: the defense and very Being of the Republic hang suspended.[1]
Yet beware, O Tyrant’s Jackals, Enemies of all Mankind! For we have our Committee of Public Command, which knows full well how a Free and Natural Republic is defended, and how, by example, it teaches the World. See! The hairy, sharp-eared Commander of the Health Department himself rushes through the streets; cockade of the Tricolour at his breast, sash at his waist. To one man he cries Courage; to another he delivers, with his own hands, muskets fresh-cast in the makeshift foundries of our parks; to a third he gives ration-tickets, due from the National Stores unto patriots made destitute or wounded; with a fourth he jests, with clenched fangs grimaces at the common Foe. Old men, matrons, children gather to him, bringing forth from their dwellings chairs, tables, cupboards, every fragment of household gear; pile them in tumultuous pyramids till there rise Barriers, mountains of refuse now become Ramparts. On these, nimble patriots climb, muskets ready, prepared to greet aerial Adversary with republican gunpowder. Nay, the Constitutional Guard itself is there: their part, from this well-calculated elevation, to launch heavenward scores of small pilotless Balloons,—each bearing, in its wicker, a powder-cask, each with a fusing cord so measured as to burst at that precise altitude where the enemy’s fleet must hover. Thus are born the famed Defender Balloons, or, as the People fondly name them, the Constitution-Keepers of the Air! On the barrier too unfurls the Tricolour of the Republic.
Suddenly, from the wooden watchtowers sounds the trumpet-blast; from rooftops rolls the Anthem, “Honor the Constitution, Citizens!” One report cracks forth, a shot of warning; then up ascend the little balloons, tricoloured, their fuses sparkling. Simultaneously, behold, from above appear the crimson and green balloons of the Coalition, bugles shrieking, grenades raining. But lo! Perceiving our flame-tailed flotilla rising to meet them, the Enemy must stoop lower,—else perish by explosion aloft. Lower they sink, and thereby fall within the shot-range of our towers, nay of our patriots perched on housetops. Instantly, grenades, bullets, iron hail fill the air; flashes, detonations, whizzing storms. Several hostile balloons blaze, collapse; ropes uncoil, down which Enemies of Mankind scurry, striving to reach earth; some leap, open parachutes, drift helplessly into our streets. With monstrous crash fall even cannons, wilfully heaved overboard by their panic-stricken crews, eager to rise above the fatal stratum where our Constitution-Keepers burst. Fireworks of ruin illuminate the dark sky, deafening thunder reverberates,—and then, as our ramparts thunder back their triumph, the Square echoes with one vast Hurrah! Whether any foe-aircraft be indeed annihilated, none can surely say; yet the Patriot Heart swells, the patriot throat shouts, for in those bursting guardians of the Constitution it beholds the fiery symbol of its own unconquerable Will.
And mark! Down upon our pavements, through smoke and bursting powder-cloud, tumble those red and green marauders. Women, with sticks in their hands, indignation in their very marrow, rush forward to strike at fallen Enemies of Humanity. Yet, daily does the Republican press admonish: take prisoner, do not slay. These poor men, driven hither by tyrant-masters, wage not this war of their own will; better that they be converted into Citizens than butchered like beasts. Still, rage and ruin know little restraint: grenades crash, flames lick the housetops, citizens themselves are struck down. The smoke, rising, scatters in high whirl the very ration-tickets—provisions for bread and physic—into invisible distances. Our foe-balloons, seeing their doom approach, begin hasty retreat, pursued by curses, musketry, the whole tempest of a people in arms.
Then—through smoke, tumult, partial silence—emerges a figure. Middle-aged, sharp of visage, bird-like, with aquiline hooked nose: a civil hat upon his brow, a drab overcoat upon his back, sash and ribbon of the Tricolour still fastened resolutely. In one hand, even here amidst ruin, he clasps papers: decrees drawn for the Committee of Public Command, speeches prepared for the National Assembly. Shouts rise, irrepressible: “Long live the Republic! Long live Hermann!” For this is Hermann Henscher himself!
He ascends, with deliberate tread, the pile of chairs and tables,—our improvised aerial-bastion. A patriot hands him the Tricolour, riddled with bullet-holes. He seizes it, waves it aloft; and from his lips pours a torrent of fiery speech: of ceaseless War, till all Continents be made Republican, moral and free, sovereign under Law written in the very Reason of Man. Victory of Guntreland, he cries, is inevitable! For, by Nature’s law, the enslaved subjects of kings will desert their chains, will join the free. He summons the Citizens not only against the external foe, but the internal: partisans of the old Regime, corrupters, vicious men of every stripe—for Vice itself is an Enemy of Virtue, and therefore an Enemy of the Republic.
The crowd roars, delirious with assent; patriots descend from the rooftops, rush to the Square; the cry multiplies, a whole people’s throat, shrieking enthusiasm.
Then ascends also the Quart-Commander,—figure almost too pompous for such mortal crisis: tall hat, bound with tricolour ribbon, plume waving, sash across uniform, tricolor upon tricolour. Yet such very pomp heartens the Republican soul: symbol, not frivolity! He solemnly proclaims, in hearing of Citizens, of Assembly’s representatives, that the Quart is defended, saved from Tyranny.
Immediately, from the mangled corpses of the Tyrant’s subjects, uniforms are torn off, heaped, and in sacred ceremony burned. The naked remains,—O savagery of exasperated men!—are quartered, dismembered by popular rage. Such is Republican Justice in its volcanic hour.
And now, the Chairman of the Committee of Public Command—descending from barricade, still with decrees clutched tight—moves toward the National Assembly itself. At his side the Health-Commander, who but a moment ago brandished musket in the fight. Together they pass, conversing, through streets yet reeking of powder. Behind them rolls the multitude of Eustate, singing hymns of Revolution, streaming toward the very heart of civic life.
They march to the Republic Square, where towers the Column graven with the Preamble of the Constitution; to Tricolour Square, with its Pavilion of Immortality, eternal flame burning over the crypt of Deserving Patriots; to Boulevard of Equality, where the statue of Gelbs rises, personification of all victims of the wicked royalism; to Boulevard of Morality, where statues of Republican Virtues (as yet plaster only, bronzes awaiting time and means) stand embodied in the forms of animals. In these processional avenues, Revolutionary fervor spreads like wildfire. Vendors of lemonade thrust cooling draughts into parched throats; flower-girls sing and proffer garlands; children hawk ribbons, emblems, which their own hands have fashioned in zeal of parents, neighbors, teachers. Even industrious craftsmen abandon work-benches, join the jubilant tide.
And lo, rumor speeds: a few districts distant, one hostile balloon, crippled, was forced to lower its flag and descend of its own weakness. Now the Constitutional Guard parades through the mob several trembling prisoners—red-coated Tildelanders—amidst jeers and execrations.
Yet, though the Quart-Commander’s pompous voice proclaims salvation, let no man deceive himself: the enemy’s balloons return, again and again. From every side—Tildeland, Bautia—their fleets descend, stationed upon isles girded with iron frigates, blockading all Guntreland. And grievous harm they work. Our barns, our granaries, our powder-mills—struck, shattered, laid waste! Worse still, those diabolical contrivances of Bautian cunning: the “step-ladder balloon.” Behold it: a great aerial vessel towing a lesser one beneath, hung by rope-ladders. When over a barn, an arsenal, a town-hall, the solitary tyrant-soldier cuts the cords; down crashes the basket filled with powder-casks, fuses already alight—hellfire descending upon the Republic’s soil! He himself, nimble as ape, clambers back to the higher balloon, rejoining his monarchical brethren. Such inventions, fit only for perfidy!
Meanwhile, hunger stalks our streets. Cattle slain by bombs, stables fired, pastures devastated: meat rises skyward in price. Before the butcher’s shop, men and women stand in endless rows with baskets in hand, quarrelling, cursing, threatening. The butcher himself protests: he cannot lower the price, for drovers themselves have raised it! But hungry bellies heed no logic. In provinces, horror whispers: some have hanged their butcher and divided the carcasses. Elsewhere—darker still—flesh of dog and cat is sold, openly, not fraudulently: for, say they, why not? The dog devours hare, the cat devours mouse—have they not themselves joined the chain of flesh?
And into this famished tumult, comes one pamphlet, fluttering like a leaf: written by a certain Lofen. He declares: it is not moral to eat animals at all! Man, says he, is herbivore by nature: behold, no fangs in our jaws! Only werewolves and vampires, fanged citizens, may with right consume flesh. The rest must be content with lentil and turnip. Further, cries Lofen, it is not moral to take milk, nor eggs, nay, not even honey. “For the bee makes honey for itself, not for us. If the bear, stealing it, is immoral—why should man be not immoral likewise?”
This Lofen finds a handful of disciples. The multitude, however, curses him with all strength of lungs, vows to thrash him if caught. Who, they demand, pays for such babbling? Is it Masden, dining on chicken roasted in honey, while we gnaw our crusts?
Citizen Henscher, in his journal The New Regime, descends upon Lofen with moralistic wisdom of his own. The bee, he proclaims, has Republican duty to surrender her honey to Man and to Bear. For she gathers it aristocratically, out of whim; they use it rationally, for sustenance. If she stings, she is aggressor, and righteous it is to despoil her.
Then rises another voice—Beren, butcher from Haldstadt, representative in the National Assembly, perpetual schemer of his own parliamentary faction. He thunders against speculators, hoarders of grain, vegetables, salted meat—profiteers who fatten while the Republic starves. His solution? Each district, says Beren, should be granted one young bear, trained to devour such men. Their hoards, confiscated, to feed the people.
Such is meat in the Republic. Fish, meanwhile, grows precious. Along the banks of the Eusta, crowds of anglers line the waters; every carp landed is hailed as though an enemy balloon were struck down. A single fish, in these days, is delicacy fit for festivals. Sea-fish rarer still: blockade sinks our boats, makes every voyage mortal risk. Thus, in many households, a few sardines suffice for the family’s daily meat.
Of tea, of cocoa, there is scarcely memory: their price vies with silver. Of curry, or Noiland pepper, none. Cinnamon and nutmeg gone, to lament of pastrycooks. Even sugar dwindles, for the enemy strikes our beet-fields, our storehouses. Thus, the Republican kitchen grows poorer, more monotonous, day by day.
And from enemy balloons there falls yet another grenade—more ruinous than explosive shell! Counterfeit tokens, printed by thousands, dropped from the sky. Hardly distinguishable from our own, these false notes multiply, breed inflation, corrode the Republic’s veins. Across continents, hundreds of forgeries, subsidized by global royalism, toil night and day. Our Assembly, powerless, decrees: “All false coin, and every man found with it (save state officials tasked with its destruction), is outlawed.” Panic spreads: citizens rush to exchange coin for goods, merchants grow suspicious, prices mount daily higher.
The truth must be told: most Guntrelanders live worse now than under the odious royal slavery. Yet—strange contradiction!—when Citizen Schmeck, speaking in Assembly, cries, “Better to starve free than feast enslaved!”—the house thunders ovation, fists raised, tears gleaming.
And still, in the vaulted galleries of the House of Patriotism (once Alfonsianum), along the Colonnades of Equality Boulevard, cafés overflow. Here, shortages seem distant; here the Republic still sips, debates, declaims. —
[1] At the time of the Guntreland Revolution, communication was conducted all over the world via optical telegraph, which included tall towers, erected at a distance of ten to 30 kilometers, with moving elements at the top - long wooden poles that could be folded into different positions - operated by the human crew, and with each position of the moving elements a symbol for one letter.
